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There's a block obsolescence issue approaching for the RCN's major units; All of the capital ships, and 2 of the carriers all date to 1937, with Furious not that far behind.
A priority is probably refits of Excelsior and Canada, as their design dates older than the refits of the Battlecruisers. They will be updated, but the question is how much to invest in the project; A cheap update to her secondary and AA battery, or a more comprehensive update to bring their speed up, and other tweaks.

A more contentious issue is the fate of the last of the RCN's Grand Fleet relics. By all practical reason, Renown, Repulse, Hood, Courageous, Glorious, and Furious should probably not receive any further investment. However, I'm sentimental and reluctant to dispose of them, and building replacements is prohibitively lengthy and expensive in our economic model. By pure math, 12-15k to further modernize each of them seems worth more than what it'd cost to build a single replacement.

The Serapis class frigates are approaching the need for routine modernization, but not quite there yet. Likewise the early Tribals will start needing life extention refits soon.

The capital ships and older carriers are probably worth refitting for life extension for another 5-10 years use.

The old Great War era stuff is well past the best and probably should be scrapped. I can't see even major reconstruction work being worth the cost given the hull life left.
Saying that replacements on a one-one basis seems overkill, the day of the battleship is over and perhaps its best to start thinking of a couple more new big carriers or some smaller Colossus-like clones, or alternatively more cruisers.

Working on Midlife refits for Canada and Excelsior. First option is a 25% refit that primarily updates the secondary and AA armament, and bulges with bunkerage improvements. Second option is a more comprehensive 50% rebuild with engines and a new bow to bring them up to 31 knots.

Personally, I would argue against the 50% refit - for a high cost you'd get a ship with a marginal stability reserve and a less than average seaboat quality. While not stellar in those characteristics the 25% refit gives them higher ratings at less cost.

Replacement of the first generation 5.5" automatics with more modern, lightweight models.
Replacement of wing quad 40mm with dual 57mm Automatics
Replacement of fore & aft 40mm with modern ASW
All the other usual Quality-of-life improvements

On a more serious note, as a trials ship it'll be lobbing a bunch of things around; One of the advantages of using this ship is the fairly large open spaces for a relatively flexible and modular setup. Initials tests are scheduled to be done with British developed systems, but Canada still in theory has access to US developed systems. I'd cook up more specific crazy Canadian hybrids like I've done in other areas, but missile tech isn't something I'm well read on.

On a tangent, i had long intended for the first missile to be fired off PEI in it's previous configuration (along the lines of the early jury-rigged Loon/Regulus launches), but I obviously haven't posted news in a long time. Not sure if anyone else has done so.

from what i can gather, that test and system is more elaborate than the PEI's initial trials would've been; That testing phase would've just been Loon-clones being lobbed at surface targets using the existing aviation equipment, and i think the aim was late '46. The Commonwealth's anti-aircraft testing seems to have been done mostly on shore facilities, with the first seagoing tests now being conducted using PEI as the platform.

The envisioned SAM system at this moment is LOP/GAP leading to Seaslug.

The Royal Navy is refitting the old County class cruiser HMS Suffolk as a trials ship, but she is focusing on guns, whereas PEI will be the missile trials ship. There may be a need for a Girdle Ness type conversion too, but probably not this sim year.

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That is just fiction, what the Federation wants you to believe. We all know what really happened. :D

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On a more serious note, as a trials ship it'll be lobbing a bunch of things around

Okay. Just make sure they don't lob it onto the Gyrodyne on the back of the ship by accident. :)

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On a tangent, i had long intended for the first missile to be fired off PEI in it's previous configuration (along the lines of the early jury-rigged Loon/Regulus launches), but I obviously haven't posted news in a long time. Not sure if anyone else has done so.

I'm a bit too lazy to look it up, but I think I only posted some stuff on the rockets being launched from Mageshima and Tanegashima in the news, not really anything on the smaller stuff that is being fitted on the ships. Having not much ideas for news does not help much either. Fortunately over at Navalism, I can just 'borrow' some real world events for my news.

My two cents, ditch the Gyrodyne its a test ship and it eats up valuable safety space on the aft deck. I also personally think the launcher/guidance is a bit modern/complex for a first test bed. One guidance radar should be enough as its one matter to launch missiles successfully and another to launch more than one with any efficiency at this time in history. Also the after directors seem redundant as do retaining so many torpedo's, I'd ditch half the launchers. Otherwise looks good to me.